Moving Right Along

Open Mind, Open Eyes, Open Heart

This extremely moving NPR story has nothing to do with amputation in particular, but everything to do with life.  This is about the power of being open to the possibility of solutions, and of change within yourself, even when other people have told you it would be wiser to close off a hope forever. 

Listen, and enjoy:

Going Binocular: Susan's First Snowfall

Mini Stair Descent Tutorial, Illustrated

If you have recently purchased your first transfemoral leg prosthesis, you have perhaps begun the thrilling process of learning how to use it for descending stairs and slopes.  This part can be kind of a white knuckler, no?  But isn't it just the most fantastic thing in the world that the technology works and you can do this?  I'm still not over that part.  Every step I take -- even two and a half years out, even so skilled that I no longer look at the ground when I walk most of the time -- is like some kind of miracle for me.

It is my hope that you will experience this as a miracle, too, as the great, constantly evolving gift that countless other people's hard work and genius have made possible for us.  First, as I did and as everyone else on this road must, you will have to take some awkward steps, lots and lots of them.   It will get less awkward, though.  The harder you work, and the better your team and equipment, the sooner it will happen.

The purpose of this post is to show you that even though it might seem very far away, it is possible to get very, very skilled at this descent stuff, to the point where you can even sidestep terrifying obstacles with much the same dexterity and confidence you always had with your original equipment.

Let's start with the basics.  You have, no doubt, already been instructed to descend stairs by placing your prosthetic foot on the lower step first.  This may seem counterintuitive, partly because you might not understand how to feel or control this leg yet, and partly because some of the people around you may occasionally refer to your living foot as your "good" foot.  You may think of it that way yourself.  Honey, they're both good.  One is just different from the other. 

As your extremely competent physical therapist and prosthetist have probably already told you, what really matters here happens in the knee.  You work it from the foot -- from the heel, precisely -- but the not-falling-down part happens in the knee.  What they may not have gotten around to telling you is that we start with stairs, not slopes, because they are ubiquitous in everyday life, because they are very visually and physically obvious, and because they usually have bannisters.  However, the same mechanism you exercise and the same sensations and reflexes you develop using stairs will be the same ones you will use climbing or descending hills, going over rough and slippery ground or pavement, hiking in the woods, etc.

It all starts with the heel smack.  Yes, go ahead and smack it, as hard as you feel like, back into the wall of the stair you are leaving and down onto the tread of the stair you are boarding.  See how I do this in the photograph above (detail at right), as I descend the very steep stairs in my own home where the treads are so shallow they can't even accomodate the full length of my size-8 sandal.  I've got my heel jammed right back into the corner of where one step meets the next, and you can see that my leg is straight, my knee locked erect.  This means it's safe for me to take my other foot off the upper step and bring it down to meet the rubber one.  I can feel this without looking because I can't pull my foot any farther back nor push it any farther down.  There's no play in the knee at all.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am a huge klutz and always have been.  With both my original legs firmly attached, I managed to fall down staircases at quite a few of the major monuments of the western world -- the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials in Washington, D.C.; the Opéra de Paris, the Comédie-Française and the Hôtel Biron in Paris, France; etc. -- not to mention every hotel and office building in which I ever spent any significant amount of time.  So actually, I learned this trick a long time ago.  Rather than trust blindly that I know where the next step is -- 'cause I don't, I really, really don't -- I have learned to smack my heel into the wall of the stair I'm stepping off while placing my heel firmly down onto the next step.  With practice, I've learned to do this less emphatically.  However, while you are still unsure where things go, how far apart things are, and what it feels like to have your prosthetic knee snapped into a reliably upright position, this is a good technique to try.  When you can't pull your leg back any further and you also can't push it down any farther, you are on the step and your knee is straight.

What you will eventually learn to do is incorporate this heel smacking into your stride downhill, on steeper and steeper hills, and then gradually not to spend a lot of energy on it and only do it very subtly.  You will learn to catch yourself before you put weight on a prosthetic that has not been sufficiently smacked open and to shift your weight back onto the other foot really fast.  You will. Sometime in the next month or so I hope to have a sunny enough day to photograph a demonstration of walking down a steep hill, and then to post it here.  You'll see the similarities between that and this immediately.  Meanwhile, this tin-soldier-ish heel-smackery -- swing and snap the leg forward, smack the heel down -- is how you start teaching yourself the limits, on flat land and on stairs.  You can gradually go more gently.  You will feel when it when it is time to ease up.  You will feel your skills and senses build.  It just takes time, and practice.

Now, some of us live more hazardous lives than others, and in certain situations it will always be necessary to watch where you put your feet.  For example, although in many situations I can now go up and down stairs without a bannister and without even looking at my feet once, in my own home I cannot, for sometimes a dangerous obstacle lurks on the very next riser:

When you encounter an obstacle such as this one, see if there is a place where you can fit your prosthetic foot next to the obstacle.  Think outside ordinary alignment.  Remember, you don't have to descend facing forward at all times like a prom queen or a movie star.  Remember, you can also just sit down and work your way carefully around the obstacle from a very stable butt base.  If you choose to remain standing, though, keep in mind that your firmly placed organic leg and foot are keeping you stable, but that you can use the bannister, the steps above you, and any available walls to brace yourself further.  Just make sure as much of your prosthetic foot is on the lower tread as possible, and that the leg, starting with the heel, is fitted firmly back against the wall of the upper step and down onto the lower tread so that your knee is straight and the whole apparatus has as much vertical support as possible.  Less smacking and more careful, firm positioning will serve you best in this kind of situation, because when the obstacle is a living being who can be startled to move in ways which might prove disadvantageous to you both, it makes sense not to engage in sudden loud activities.  In the photo above, you can see how I angled my rubber foot into a corner to ensure optimum positioning without startling the obstacle.

If the dangerous obstacle is not alive, of course, or at least not possessed of certain unpredictably wiggly characteristics, thus stabilized you may find you can simply bend over and pick the obstacle up or push it out of the way.  This technique works well with things like grocery bags or carelessly abandoned accessories.  It is not the best technique to employ with living obstacles, however, due to their often unpredictable reactions.

With living obstacles, you may have to employ powers of persuasion.  Sometimes, all it will take to get the obstacle moving is the mere placement of your prosthetic foot next to the obstacle.  Sometimes you may have to resort to cooing sweetly, bargaining, or even begging.  Depending on the circumstances of your own life, perhaps a small water-filled squirt bottle or squirt gun will also prove a useful addtion to your toolbelt, hip pocket, or conveniently placed shelf.  Just make sure you're well braced to withstand the results of whatever method happens to work.

In any event, if you are fortunate, extreme measures will not be necessary,...

...and you will soon be able to continue your descent uneventfully.

Very important:  Note that even though it is quite possible that during the scenario I have illustrated here I am already late to work and on the verge of being fired (and I do hope I'm speaking strictly hypothetically), I have not brought my organic foot down to join my prosthetic foot on the stair below until my beloved little obstacle has cleared himself off.  This is because, no matter what, when we are on stairs, especially when we know that a particular staircase tends to be haunted by dangerous obstacles, we are never in a hurry.  Never.  Understand?  You can always make up time elsewhere -- or not.  While you are on the stairs, though, your careful patience will keep you and your own beloved obstacles safe from violently unpleasant eventualities.

Now, if the obstacle is a living obstacle, even if you have not resorted to extreme measures, the obstacle might not be very happy with you after all this.

The obstacle might be downright peevish.

In order to be sure you will always (or even usually) obtain consistently positive results whenever you will wish in the future to clear this particular obstacle from your path, some sort of appeasement may be in order.  At the very least, you should speak kindly, lovingly, and gratefully to the obstacle who has collaborated with you in your safe descent.

You know what you have to do.  Don't be proud.  Remember, although you are indeed entitled to go up and down the stairs in your own house whenever you wish, cooperation, like kindness, is not something we should ever take for granted.  It costs nothing to say "thank you" every once in awhile.

Starbucks, 2:00 Friday afternoon

Boyfriend (reading from Boston Globe):  "Don't waste time; make today count. Offer your services or time to someone or something you believe in. The contributions you make will help you out in the future."

Me:   Was that for you or me?

Boyfriend:  You.  Here's me:  "Make plans or socialize with children or close friends."  Ha!  I don't have any friends.

Me:  I'm your friend.

Boyfriend:  You're not my friend.  You're my arch-, um, something or other.

Stomach Flu and the Pillow Thief

I have been sick all week with stomach flu.  This has taken my week from me, and that has meant that I have been unable to respond to some comments to which I really, really want to respond.

It makes me very angry when I get sick because it almost always happens when coworkers come to work knowing they are contagious.  Sometimes this happens because they are confused about our excused absence policy, and this is partly the fault of management, I'm afraid.  Sometimes they're just selfish or desperate and won't or can't give up their vacation/sick days (at Whole Foods they're all the same thing) or the pay they'd miss if they stayed home. 

The problem is, when people do this, come to work knowing they are ill and probably contagious, they end up stealing from me, and I end up hating them for it.  'Cause I always catch whatever they've got.  Always.  And it always hits me harder and longer than it hits them.  And that means I lose whole days of my precious, irreplaceable, cancer-tainted life, whole days of love and potential, all down the toilet.  Or in this case, into a bucket.

In Japan, I hear they make you wear gloves and a mask when you insist on going out in public contagiously ill.  I think that's entirely reasonable.  I don't think it marginalizes sick people; I think it allows them to do whatever they feel they have to do without stealing life from other people.  You (disease-carrying teammates who refuse to stay home)  have your agenda (not losing pay or vacation days), management has its agenda (not having staffing crises), and the customers and I have ours (not catching your crud).  I do think the glove-and-mask thing answers everybody's needs.

Do I sound a little, oh, tyrannical here?  Tough.  I just spent three days, two and a half of which were actually rain-free, with a fever over a hundred degrees, unable to walk, hop or raise my arm due to extreme, axe-quality, joint pain, unable to stay awake for more than 45 minutes at a time, unable even to crochet.  It took me over 48 hours to watch two Netflixed Krzysztof Kieslowski movies because I kept falling asleep (and no, it wasn't the movies, which were Blind Chance and Camera Buff.)  Oh, and my boyfriend might get this, too.  So, yeah, I'm cranky. 

The good news is that it's sunny again today, and I'm going to work in a little while, where I shall quite possibly continue to feel inspired to share my views with people who don't want to hear them but who will most probably not be able to shut me up.  The other good news -- and I mention this only because it's Friday, and that's as good an excuse as any for cat-blogging -- is that being sick means I got to spend extra time with my little friend, here, the recalcitrant pillow thief.

To extremely loosely paraphrase a well-known quote:  He who steals my pillow takes nothing I would not freely give.  But he who steals my days in the sun goes right onto my hate list, no turning back.

Little kitties never get on my hate list.

This is not a food blog, but...

...I have a sad story to tell. 

Last Saturday, June 3, 2006, my true love and I had but two things we definitely had to do:

1)  We had to attend the annual used book auction and sale at the Concord Free Public Library in Concord, Massachusetts (even though we have no money, no shelf space and no floor or wall space for more shelves, and even though I have not yet read approximately one-third of the books I own); and

2)  Tipped off by Leslee, we had to go to Westboro, Massachusetts, to track down a most elusive  prey:  the authentic tamale in New England.  Apparently, these are available at Julio's Liquors some Saturdays, freshly made by a genuinely Mexican woman.

Please understand.  Neither of these was a choice.  Both of these were needs.  Without meeting these needs, there would be consequences.

Now, in case I haven't already mentioned it, except for a couple of days a couple of weeks ago, it's been raining in Eastern Massachusetts for -- and I'm just estimating here -- well over a month.  It has not been misting or lightly drizzling, except during brief intervals.  Mostly it has been showering.  Pouring.  Dumping. 

So, the outdoor book sale was cancelled.  "It's okay," I told my true love, only mildly twitching.  "We don't have any money or room for more books anyway.  But let's still go get some tamales."

We looked up where Westboro is.  We discovered it to be approx. 30 miles away.  We looked out the window.  It was, again, raining, but not just raining, no.  It had kicked right back up to dumping.  People in Massachusetts have many fine qualities, but driving prowess is not common among them, nor is effective road maintenance apparently a high priority in the Commonwealth.  The idea of driving 30 miles in, well, driving rain did not appeal.  So we sadly decided to punt that idea, as well.

Where should we go instead?  There were all our usual haunts, but we were bored with them.  Big fat ennui on a day dumping rain is a dangerous thing.

I looked over our collection of paper menus picked up from our travels.  I found one for a place called Sierras, very close by.  It claimed to offer "authentic Mexican favorites and light, heart-healthy creations."

Yeah, yeah, "heart-healthy," blah, blah, blah.  What got me was the "authentic Mexican."  Remember, I had been cheated by weather and distance out of the promise of freshly made real tamales, tamales I'd been contemplating for at least two days, tamales of which Leslee had already teased me with a lovely, lovely picture.  (Look at the corn husk.  Look at that corn meal coating.  Now think about that husk between your fingertips, and that corn meal, fluffy but mealy, rolling itself around in your happy, happy mouth.  Beauty.)  Seriously?  All you'd have had to do at that point was say the word "salsa," and I'd have whipped my head around shrieking, "Where?  Where?"

Now, I must confess that upon perusing the menu, I did harbor doubts as to the asserted authenticity of the cuisine on offer.  "Suiza" and "mole," for example, are not interchangeable terms.  "Suiza," which means "Swiss," indicates that a dish will be served in a cream sauce.  "Mole" is a whole other thing altogether, a kind of mixture which comes in several different flavors, mole poblano being my absolute favorite, a deep dark fluid from the heart of the ancients, rich with bitter cocoa, roasted ancho chiles hand pounded into dust, and a dozen other mysterious ingredients which might include pumpkin seeds or might include almond butter, depending on who's in the cocina, and which together caress the tongue, warm the heart, and fill the belly with joy and a righteous feeling of purpose. However, I was desperate.  And bored.  So my love and I decided we would try something new.  We would try this place, Sierras of Sudbury, Massachusetts, and see what we would see.

Right.  Well.  What we ended up seeing, and sadly tasting, was the second worst "Mexican" meal either of us has ever endured.  Interestingly enough, it was also the second worst "Mexican" meal either of us has yet eaten in Massachusetts, or even greater New England.  We've both had better Mexican food in a New Hampshire strip mall.

Hmmmm.

First, a word about the ambience.  The decor of this place is actually rather charming, in a designer - who's - never - been - west - of - Pittsburgh - reimagining - the - southwest kind of way.  Dried plant life of a rambling variety, probably from right here in New England, twines itself picturesquely across the ceiling, and there are lots of evocative skulls and horns among the pink and turquoise.  I think the antelope skull with the long horns might actually be African, but I am no expert and, in any case, the vacant eye sockets sort of staring blankly at me across the dining room definitely added something to my meal.

The music was painful.  Painful.  '80s gay disco -- in Spanish.  Anime closing titles pop -- in Spanish.  Loud.  Very, very loud.  "Work it, sister!" loud. 

I can't even stand that crap at the gym, where it seems de rigeur for every exercise class.  Besides my love of privacy, this is the foremost reason why I don't take exercise classes, and even why I stopped going to the gym, despite my passionate love affair with the rowing machine.  Painful -- the music, not the exercise.  Physically and emotionally painful.  Not appropriate luncheon accompaniment.

At the same time, I cannot tell you how it comforts me to know that other countries have horrible, crappy music, too.  All I usually hear is the good stuff, the jazz, the classical, the highly ethnic and the so-called "world beat."  I feel somewhat better about this country, and about Japan, knowing that there is also really horrible music to be found in Spanish-speaking countries, if you know where to go for it.  I suspect, as here, you have to go to an exercise class or a gay disco.  Here in Massachusetts, though, if you miss it from wherever you're from, apparently you can also hear it at Sierras during the Saturday lunch hour.

Still we did not run.

The meal began when we sat down to a basket of tortilla chips with a dish of bland, bottled salsa.  It was slightly more flavorful -- and slightly runnier, and sweeter -- than ketchup.

We ordered beverages.  It was pouring rain -- did I mention that? -- so caffeine was in order.  My love ordered iced tea.  I told the waiter I "needed" coffee.

"Cof-fee?" he mouthed back to me, puzzled, like he didn't know what this might be. 

"Yes.  I need it.  You understand?"  The way he affirmed that he did made me think that he didn't.  Soon, though, he returned with a lovely, slender glass of iced tea and a full coffee service for one -- cup, cream, and sweetener.  The iced tea was so good, my love asked for a second, and I ordered a second cup of coffee.  And yes, getting our food did take that long.

My love received his second glass of tea and made a funny face. 

"What's wrong?"

"Uh --" he said in a choked voice, pointing to the rim of his glass. "Uh -- he fished out my lemon wedge and stuck it back on the edge of the glass."

He was right.  Instead of delivering a fresh glass with a fresh lemon wedge, both things apparently precious beyond jewels, the waiter or cook had chosen to remove the well-squeezed wedge my love had used before, pour more tea into the same glass, and then garnish the glass with said already well-squeezed wedge.  It was rather disgusting to look at and to think about.

"I'm not even sure I want to drink this."

"Don't."

"But the tea is really good."

"Well, it is your own lemon."

He ended up drinking the tea.  And still we did not run.

Our meals came eventually.  After scanning the menu carefully, each of us secretly looking for something that the cook, no matter how un-Mexican, just couldn't possibly screw up completely,  we had each ended up ordering the same thing: chicken enchiladas, my love's in "ranchero" sauce, and mine in that "suiza" form which is described on this menu as "mole."  Yeah, I know; what I said above.  Still, I like mole.  So, I figured, what the hell?

The plates came.  My love's beans looked like snot.  He did not touch them.  My "black" beans were actual beans, but they were not exclusively black, and they were not refried, which actually made them kind of tasty.  The rice, mixed with peas and corn, looked and tasted like it had been purchased frozen, all pre-mixed and everything, sort of like succotash or one of those "stir fry" kits.

Suddenly my love began to laugh.  "Taste my sauce," he said.

I took a teaspoon, dipped it in, and licked it.  Then I began to laugh, too. 

"Ranchero" my butt.  It was bottled spaghetti sauce.  The "chef" had smothered my true love's enchiladas, which were basically shredded chicken rolled up in store-bought corn tortillas, in bottled spaghetti sauce. 

My own plate was slightly less nasty.  The mole sauce in which my enchiladas, also shredded chicken rolled up in store-bought corn tortillas, were drowning was a thick and sticky soup of (probably) Doña Maria brand bottled mole poblano paste, ill-diluted.  I like Doña Maria.  I use it myself, at home.  I usually dilute it to a rather thin consistency with water, not broth, then add tomatoes and more bitter cocoa but absolutely no sugar, then cook the chicken (or whatever) into the sauce with potatoes, corn and other vegetables before making enchiladas or anything else out of it, but the basic flavor of it is okay.  And I am told by my half-Mexican true love that mole is such a giant pain in the butt to make that most Mexicans don't make it from scratch, either, but also use Doña Maria.  I guess Doña Maria is to Mexican households sort of like what Heinz and Kraft are to American households, only slightly healthier since Doña Maria mole doesn't appear to include high fructose corn syrup.  However, you must understand that each of our plates was priced at over $10 apiece.  We thought it was $14 apiece, but the website says only $10.95; we no longer remember for certain.  For that much money, though, anywhere in that range, I expect not only not to be able to tell that something came out of a bottle, but not to be able to pinpoint the brand.

We were very hungry.  Our food was disgusting, but not inedible.  We each ate one of the three enchiladas on each plate, then asked for the check.  Even though the food was bad, we asked to have it packed up because we thought we could pick out the chicken and feed it to our cat, and then compost the rest.  (I hate wasting food).  The waiter did not know this was our plan for our leftovers, and yet he asked us if we wanted them in the same container.  I guess lemon wedges  and clean glasses aren't the only precious things at Sierras.

We left, wondering only in what language the waiter and the bartender/maître d' were conversing.  It wasn't Spanish.  And so ended the second-worst-ever experience for both of us eating purportedly Mexican food.

Now, I know you're going to ask: what could possibly have been worse? 

The worst Mexican meal either of us has ever endured was at a terrible, terrible restaurant, a longstanding institution which has since been replaced in Harvard Square by an Indian restaurant we haven't tried yet.  That restaurant included beans cooked in so much lard it was all we could taste (and it was rancid), chips so old the corn part was stale and the oil they'd been fried in, where it still stuck to them, was rancid, and the grossest, most institutionalized converted rice I've ever allowed to pass my lips.  Frankly, I think we haven't tried the Indian replacement yet because every time we look at the beautiful tiled entrance we relive that horrible, horrible "Mexican" meal a little.  This is probably unfair, but that's how bad it was.

Saturday's travesty was not as horrible as our worst ever.  It was edible.  It was not Mexican.  It was hilarious, and very badly though cheerfully served.  Afterward, we stopped by Verrill Farm and bought a pot of live wheatgrass for the kitty and a very comforting strawberry and plum pie for ourselves, in butter crust with a thick butter-cookie crumb topping, freshly baked and still warm from the oven.  And the next day, we went to brunch at Serafina Ristorante, shockingly enough owned by the same people who own Sierras, and had quite possibly the very best breakfast/brunch experience I have had in New England.  Here we were treated to an exquisite citrus salad, a magnificent wild mushroom omelet, perfectly cooked, and a crispy, light Belgian waffle topped with yummy bananas cooked in sugar and butter until soft and steeped in fantastic caramel flavor, but not mushy.  The service was slightly airheaded and disengaged, but this didn't matter.  The food was wonderful, the other diners were all loudly celebrating festive occasions with as many family members as possible, and the live music performed by the hostess who seated us, a talented jazz singer and pianist, was gentle and lovely.  So there you go.

And we did in fact serve the leftover chicken to our kitty.  I think I got a little of the "ranchero" sauce on his first serving, though, because after he'd eagerly gobbled it down, he immediately ran down the stairs and threw it right back up.

Good kitty.